Bloom's How to Write about Oscar Wilde »

A poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright, Oscar Wilde excelled in a range of genres, engaging and fascinating his readers with his ability to make use of compatible contraries. Nine of his central works, including The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lady Windermere's Fan, and Salomé, are discussed in this volume, which presents readers with suggestions, topics, and strategies for producing strong and persuasive essays on Wilde's incisive and often boisterously comic writings.

Bloom's how to write about literature series is a valuable resource for students writing essays on great works of literature. Each volume in the series contains dozens of sample paper topics and brief discussions of how to approach the topics. Each volume also contains a detailed general chapter on how to write and format a good essay and an introduction by Harold Bloom, who meditates on the challenges and rewards of writing about the volume's subject author. Bloom's how to write about literature series is an essential tool for all students and a useful aid for teachers.

Series Introduction v

Volume Introduction vii

How to Write a Good Essay 1

How to Write about Oscar Wilde 46

The Ballad of Reading Gaol 57

The Critic as Artist 72

De Profundis 86

The Decay of Lying 103

The Picture of Dorian Gray 116

The Importance of Being Earnest 134

The Happy Prince 152

Lady Windermere's Fan 165

Salomé 179

Index 193